Jazz and Wine Fest coming to Clinton Square

For the past seven years, it was known as Jazz in the Square. Last year, the three-day music festival became the performing arts anchor of “Syracuse Artsweek,” a mega-festival created in conjunction with the Syracuse Arts & Crafts Festival.

This year the Artsweek connection remains but Jazz in the Square has been renamed the Northeast Jazz & Wine Festival, being staged July 23-25, at downtown’s Clinton and Hanover squares. Presented by the CNY Jazz Arts Foundation, the festival is free.

Trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, a Syracuse native now a mainstay on the Manhattan jazz scene, returns to Clinton Square as the festival’s resident artist-educator. Joe Mags will blow his horn with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, and takes centerstage again as the guest of the CNY Jazz Orchestra on Friday evening, July 24.

Magnraelli’s most recent disc is Persistence, on the Reservoir Jazz label.

Also performing Friday will be Canadian-born, NYC-based pianist John Stetch and smooth jazz saxophonist Marion Meadows, a gentleman who performs frequently in both Phoenix, Ariz. and Maui, Hawaii.

The NE Jazz and Wine Festival lineup was announced Tuesday morning, June 16, by Larry Luttinger, executive director of the CNY Jazz Arts Foundation, at Jazz Central, downtown.

The festival’s performers on Saturday July 25, will include scholastic acts and community jazz bands in the afternoon, followed by the Thelonious Monk Project led by Rochester pianist Bill Dobbins, Miami vocalist Nicole Henry and New Orleans saxophonist Donald Harrison.

Trad-jazz performers for the festival’s Mardi Gras Pavilion which opens at 5 p.m. each day, will be announced shortly, Luttinger said.